TRENTON — Some parents of children with autism and other developmental disabilities are worried about a state proposal that would make them pay more for early intervention services.

For a family with a child receiving a typical 10 hours per month of therapy, their contribution would increase from $115 to $310 per month, according to Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, deputy state health commissioner.

It's a bad situation from Tara Banuls, a North Arlington resident who has two children with autism.

"No one's thinking about the future. It's going to cost more to educate the children if they don't get this jump-start because they're going to be further behind," Banuls told The Sunday Record of Bergen County.

Early intervention by experts in behavior, speech and occupational therapy has been shown to dramatically improve the learning and communications potential of a child because a human brain can rewire itself early in life to compensate for a disorder.

The federal government has mandated that states offer early intervention services for children from birth to age 3, with treatment covering not only autism but disorders such as hearing impairments, mental retardation and cerebral palsy.

Some of the costs are covered by the federal government, with the state and parents covering the rest.

New Jersey's budget for the program, has tightened, however, as the number of children referred to the program doubled over six years to 13,788 in fiscal 2005-06. As of July, services were going to 8,815 New Jersey children.